Why Uber and Lyft Drivers Are Going on Strike This Week
On May 8, Uber and Lyft drivers in major cities across the country are planning a strike. The actual scope of the strike reportedly varies by city, as drivers in Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Boston will be logging off the apps for anywhere from two hours during morning rush hour to the entire day. And they're calling on riders to do the same. That's a pretty narrow window, but it's a strategic choice: Uber is going public on May 9, and right now it looks like the company's valuation will be a staggering $90 billion.
Organizing contract workers spread across the country is logistically hard, but that hasn't stopped insulated Uber in the past. In 2017, a series of company scandals inspired the #DeleteUber hashtag and helped pave the way for the resignation of then CEO Travis Kalanick. Back in March, when Uber announced that it would be cutting driver pay from 80 cents per mile to 60, drivers in Los Angeles organized a day-long strike. The company promised to find new ways to improve worker wages but didn't reverse its pay cut. According to the American Automobile Association, the cut brought driver pay down to barely one cent over the average cost per mile to keep a car running.
Now groups like the New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which represents 21,000 workers including Lyft and Uber drivers, are calling on drivers and riders alike to boycott the apps to protest falling wages and what they call unfair labor practices, with drivers bearing most of the costs and risks while having no say in decisions that the company makes. In a statement, the NYTWA said, "Wall Street investors are telling Uber and Lyft to cut down on driver income, stop incentives, and go faster to Driverless Cars. Uber and Lyft wrote that they think they pay drivers too much already [...] Uber's corporate owners are set to make billions, all while drivers are left in poverty and to go bankrupt." In New York alone, ridesharing apps have had such a negative impact on the taxi industry that critics have said Uber and Lyft carry some of the blame for a rash of taxi driver suicides.
As part of its IPO filing, Uber disclosed that the company paid CEO Dara Khosrowshahi $45 million. COO Barney Harford made $47 million in 2018. That same year, half of the Uber drivers in the U.S. made under $10 an hour. Which makes clear why they would want to disrupt their own disruptive industry.
